REVIEW
ARTICLE ABOUT COLLOCATION
Post
by :GÜLAY KOÇ,
Department of Teaching English as a foreign language, Bilke University, Ankara
A
review by : Agnesia Elvi Wisnita S
Pages : 127
Title : Developing Collocational
Awareness
The
article give us the explanation about Collocation, such as:
This study aimed to investigate to what
extent explicit instruction of vocabulary
in
collocations, using different techniques, develops collocational awareness in
students,
and
whether such instruction has any enhancing effect on the retention of
vocabulary.
Eight
intact groups of 160 EFL students of upper-intermediate proficiency level
under
the supervision of their regular course teachers participated in this study.
Four of
the
groups were assigned as the experimental group and received vocabulary
instruction
focusing
on collocations, while the remaining four were assigned as the control group
and
received instruction concentrating on single words. For this investigation, a
vocabulary
retention test , which was administered as the pre-and post-test, three tasks
for
the three treatment sessions, transcriptions of verbal processes of one of the
experimental
groups, and retrospective interviews with the participant instructors were
used
as data collection devices.
The analyses of the qualitative data
showed that the participants developed
awareness
to the extent that they could identify collocations in any text and categorize
lexical
collocations. The analyses of the quantitative data revealed that vocabulary
instruction
in collocations yielded far better results in terms of vocabulary retention.
In
the light of the findings of this study, explicit instruction of vocabulary in
collocations,
using different techniques, is highly recommended for developing
collocational
competence and better retention of vocabulary.
Background of
Collocation
The term “collocation”, which means
word combinations, such as catch a cold, commit suicide, bitter disappointment,
safety belt, was originally introduced by Firth (1951cited in Cowie and
Howarth, 1996), directing the attention of
ELT practitioners, theorists, linguists and researchers to the highly
significant phenomenon of lexicon. However, the importance of it was realized
far later.
As Zimmerman (1997) states,
especially with the introduction of work in the area of corpus analysis,
computational linguistics and lexical approaches, a growing number of scholars
(e.g., Sinclair, 1991; Nattinger and Decarrico, 1992; Lewis, 1993), representing
a significant theoretical and pedagogical
shift from the past with their work, pushed collocations to the center
of language acquisition. Today, it has widely been acknowledged that collocations
constitute an important part of native speaker competence, and therefore should
be integrated into second and foreign language
teaching
(e.g., Cowie, 1992; Bahns, 1993; Wei, 1999; Lewis; 2000).
Research on collocations falls into a
broad spectrum. Nattinger (1988), Sinclair (1991), Willis (1990) and Lewis
(2000), among the pioneers of research on collocation, have described and
categorized collocations and produced seminal studies which have contributed
considerably to our understanding of lexis.
There have been many published studies
evaluating the collocational proficiency of EFL learners from various levels,
in order to investigate the correlation between English proficiency and
knowledge of collocations. Huang (2001), Bonk (2000), Biskup (1992) and Zughoul
and Abdul-Fattah (2003) are among those who developed and administered
small-scale elicitation tests and attempted to reflect on the learners’ actual production
problems of English collocations. Moreover, some of these studies have contributed
to literature revealing what strategies are being used by non-native learners of
English when they cannot find the appropiate collocates of words.
Furthermore, some scholars have offered
a distinction between receptive and productive vocabulary skills of EFL/ ESL
learners. They have emphasized that receptive knowledge enables students to
comprehend word meanings appropriately; however, the productive knowledge
entails using a wide variety of ways that words collocate with each other. They
have focused on learner errors in production, analysed them and made suggestions
towards solutions for minimizing these types of collocational errors (e.g., Pawley
& Syder, 1983; Meara,1984; Carter, 1987; Nation, 1990; Wei,1999; Lewis
2000; Nesselhauf, 2003).
Another field, which has been fruitful
for collocation studies is closely related to computer technology. As Kita and
Ogata (1997) state, rapid advances in computer technology have caused a shift
in natural language applications from a knowledge based to a corpus based or
data intensive approach. This new trend has highly affected the field of
computer assisted language learning/teaching (CALL/CALT). A growing number of
researchers have dealt with the problem of collocation from various aspects
yielding aid for practitioners and learners (e.g., Kita & Ogata, 1997; Shei
& Pain, 2000; Nesselhauf & Tschichold, 2002; Sun & Wang, 2003,
among others).
Additionally, lexicographers and
linguists have also expanded the spectrum of studies on collocations.
Dictionaries are the most important sources of lexical information for learners
and instructors. Carter (1987: 157) says, “Dictionaries have a good image” and
he notes that almost every learner of a language as a second or foreign language
owns one and it is one of the few books retained after following a language course.
However, conventional dictionaries are used for decoding- finding the meaning of
unknown words- rather than encoding. Since collocations were recognized by many
scholars as one of the most significant aspects of lexicon, some researchers
have diverted attention to the need of developing more sophisticated phraseological dictionaries. The BBI
Dictionary of English Word Combinations, The LTP Dictionary of Selected
Collocations and Longman Essential Activator are some of the products of this period.
In summary, collocations have been
researched from various aspects. However, only a few researchers have attempted
to develop insights towards the needs of learners and practitioners in EFL
classroom settings. The focus of this study is on explicitly raising
students’consciousness towards collocations, and providing learners with different
techniques for the retention of these word combinations.
Methodology of
Collocation
The instruments used in the data
collection process included the Vocabulary. Retention Test, its subsections,
its piloted version, the tasks and techniques used in the treatments and the
materials delivered in the treatments. In addition, classroom sessions were
audiotaped and transcribed, and interviews were held with the participant
teachers.
1. The
Vocabulary Retention Test as the Pre- and Post-test
As
this was an experimental research study with two groups (experimental and
control groups) and with three treatment or instruction types for each group, a
vocabulary test with three subsections was designed by the researcher and
administered before and after the treatments in order to see the preliminary collocational
knowledge of the participants and to assess the difference, if any, stemming
from the effect of treatment types focusing on collocations in the experimental
group. Another reason for the vocabulary retention test to serve as the pre-
and post-test was that similar testing procedures have been widely used in
experimental studies with the same design as the present one (e.g., Tokaç,
2005).
The
test was comprised of 75 collocations, both grammatical and lexical. In the literature,
mostly lexical collocations have been emphasized as the source of problems for
learners of EFL. However, although grammatical collocations have received more
attention than lexical collocations and taught explicitly in most EFL
classrooms, students still fail to produce adjectives, verbs and nouns when
they form combinations with prepositions because they are not transparent; therefore,
they require special attention as much as lexical collocations. For example,
Bonk (2000) posits that there is a combination of semantic, syntactic and
lexical knowledge in these expressions that make them hard to acquire.
Considering these reasons and to prevent the negligence towards this type of
collocations, one of the sections in the test was alloted to grammatical collocations
and the other two to lexical collocations. In choosing this type of collocations
for inclusion, the suggestion made by Woolard (2000) was also taken into
consideration. What he suggests is that teachers should keep a record of
mis-collocations students make in their production of language and provide a
platform for raising awareness of collocations focusing on the selection of
their mis-collocations. Therefore, in this section, the researcher used some of
the mis-collocations students generally produce, drawing on her experience of
teaching students of the same proficiency level.
The
first subtest was a simple recognition test in multiple choice format with 25 verb
+ preposition, noun + preposition, and adjective + preposition type
collocations and the participants were asked to choose the best alternative
among the choices of prepositions. As the focus of this section was on grammatical
collocations and there were only a few alternative prepositions as collocates
of the headwords, multiple choice type of testing was found more appropriate
due to the fact that it would be more reliable and provide more practicality
for later evaluation.
The
second subtest was a fill-in-the-blank test adapted by the researcher, leaving the
collocates of 25 words blank in two selected passages of an article from
Newsweek Magazine, which was also used in the corresponding treatment session.
The collocations targeted here were mainly of the lexical type, and to provide
more contextual clues for the participants to make closer guesses and to
enhance reliability in evaluation they were presented in context. Additionally,
this section aimed at more free production of the participants when compared
with the first and third subtests because choices were not provided.
The
third subtest was a cued fill-in-the-blank test. In this section, a passage on pollution
with sentences containing blanks for the collocates of 25 words and the synonyms
of the blanked collocates in parantheses at the end of each sentence was used,
and the participants were required to provide the missing part of the
collocations. The answers of the participants were kept under control by
providing as many synonyms of the targeted collocates as possible in
parantheses to raise the reliability. This section also mostly concentrated on
lexical collocations and except for the last two sentences all of them were
adapted from a reading text which was designed to teach collocations and retrieved
from a website. (http://esl.about.com/od/vocabularylessonplans/a/chunk.htm).
With
regard to validity of the test, the participants were all at the same proficiency
level (as revealed on table 2 in chapter 4) and the test was piloted with two classrooms
who were at the same level as the participants. Reliability was assured by having
two native English teachers check the items in all sections. Additionally, the researcher
evaluated the results at different times.
2. Piloting
the Vocabulary Retention Test
The
test was piloted two weeks prior to the first treatment session with two
classes who were at the same proficiency level as the control and experimental
groups but did not take part in the experimental study. The test was reduced to
45 items excluding ten items from each section, which were answered by the
majority of the pilot group. Thus the items to be used in the pre-test, three
treatment sessions and post-test were determined. (See Appendix A for the final
version of the pre- and post-test).
3. Materials
Used in the Treatment Sessions
Three
tasks for three treatment sessions were designed, and to ensure unity in
classrooms and to inform the participant teachers about how to administer the
lessons, a training session was held one day prior to each treatment session.
The instructors were also provided with lesson plans, which showed all the
steps to be followed in detail. (See Appendix B for the lesson plans.)
The
first treatment session, participants of both control and experimental groups
were exposed to the same reading text, the article on anorexia nervosa. The participants
in the control group read the article twice, worked on the vocabulary unfamiliar
to them, answered comprehension questions and summarized the article in their
own words. On the other hand, in the experimental classrooms, the participants were
first asked to work in groups of four to translate some Turkish sentences, all
of which contained targeted collocations, into English in groups of four. The
teachers then introduced some information about collocations and asked them to
read the text to reshape their actual versions. (See appendix C for the
information given about collocations.) The groups worked on their versions after
reading the text on anorexia nervosa and corrected their mistakes on
collocations. Then, they completed a table drawn by their teachers with types
of lexical collocations they encountered in the text. They also summarized the
text using the word combinations they worked on.
The
second treatment session, a dictaglossing technique was used with a short text
on pollution, which was retrieved from a web site. The text was read aloud by
the instructors twice or three times and the participants in the control group
were asked to collect words while it was being read and work in groups of four
to reconstruct the passage using the words they compiled. On the other hand,
the participants in the experimental group were asked to collect words during
the first round of the reading to reconstruct the passage and their collocates
in the second round to reshape their first versions. Their attention to
collocations was also ensured by three questions eliciting some of the targeted
phrases after the first round of the reading.
The
last treatment session, grammatical collocations were focused on and participants
in both groups were delivered a handout consisting of fifteen sets of sentences.
In each set, there were sentences containing one or two collocational mistakes or
none. The participants in the control group were asked to work in pairs to mark
and correct the mistakes looking up the headwords in their dictionaries, while
those in the experimental group were provided with concordancing extracts for
the same procedure. The experimental group participants were also asked to find
the most frequent collocates of the headwords looking at the extracts as well
as making funny sentences with the collocations they corrected. Thus they had
the chance to recycle the target collocations and to solidify their learning.
The
treatment sessions were conducted at the same class hour in all classrooms under
the supervision of their regular course teachers on subsequent days. As for the
time allotted to the treatments, in both groups, it was 100 minutes to the
first treatment, and 50 minutes each for the second and third treatment
sessions.
Conclussion of
Collocation
The findings of this study indicate that
students have difficulty in dealing with collocations, which shows consistency
with a great body of research conducted previously. As revealed by other
studies (e.g., Martin, 1984; Farghal and
Obiedat, 1995; Gitsaki, 1996; Bahns and Eldaw, 1993; Bonk, 2000; Conzett, 2000;
Huang, 2001; Nesselhauf, 2003; Zughoul and Abdul-Fattah, 2003), although
learners develop knowledge of collocations to some extent, and it increases
steadily as the level of proficiency increases, it lags far behind their
knowledge of single vocabulary items. In
this
study, the analysis of some segments from the verbal processes of the
participants has shown that although the students have a good stock of words,
since their attention has not been directed to collocations, they have mostly
failed to re-combine elements to produce the targeted collocations, and they
produced combinations such as, “eating irregularities” instead of “eating disorders”. Therefore, for teachers
of EFL the highlighting of collocations should be as important as teaching
vocabulary individually. It seems to be the only way to enhance the active use
of language, and to help the learners construct lexically acceptable sentences
rather than making sentences full of unnatural-sounding elements or grammatical
mistakes with simple vocabulary.
In a number of previous studies,
researchers have investigated and identified the strategies used by the
learners of EFL. The analyses of the responses of the participants on the
pre-test and the transcriptions of the verbal processes have revealed that similar
strategies were employed by the participants of this study. The students either
on the pre-test or during the treatments resorted to overgeneralization and
analogy, expanding a feature or form to a different contextual use in the
target language with phrases such as, “put off weight” “obsessed to” rather
than “lose weight”, and “obsessed with”. Literal translation was another mostly
relied on strategy, which led to errors of L1 interference. Along this line,
most participants used phrases such as “destroy/ damage her body”, “heart
crisis”, “drink a drink”, “give weight” instead of “abuse her body” “heart
failure”, “take a drink”, and “lose weight”. There were traces of derivativeness
as well. The use of “destroyable eating habits” and “seeming bones” instead of “disastrous eating habits” and “protruding
bones” may serve as examples of this strategy. Assumed synonymity and
paraphrase and circumlocution were the other two most commonly used strategies.
Although the participants knew many synonymous words, they looked for a synonym
or a near-synonym, which resulted in production of odd phrases, such as “voice pollution”, “battle problems”, “suit the profile”, “earn respectability” instead
of “noise pollution “, “combat problems”, “fit the profile “, and “gain
respectability”. This can be attributed to the fact that they were not fully
aware of the selectional restrictions of these words because of the type of
instructional input they had and bilingual or less sophisticated monolingual
dictionaries with limited contextual distinctions they relied on. Similarly, most
participants in this study widely employed paraphrasing while performing the translation
task to convey the intended message with phrases such as “treat her body badly”,
“ with a bigger and bigger ambition“, “ to take control of her appetite ”
rather than “ abuse her body“, “with growing enthusiasm” and “to keep her
appetite in check”, which resulted in grammatical mistakes. Taking into
consideration these strategies employed by learners would be beneficial for instructors,
textbook developers, and course designers in providing solutions for learners’
problems and facilitating teaching collocations in EFL settings.
Some researchers who hold the belief
that collocations are of great significance for both learners and instructors
of EFL find instructors helpless in developing materials and techniques to
teach collocations and encouraging student autonomy, and as a result, some have
focused on development of dictionaries (e.g., Benson et al., 1997) while others
have designed concordancer programs (e.g., Sinclair, 1991). One of the findings
related to the use of concordancing extracts and dictionaries in teaching
collocations generated consistent results with their beliefs. In the last treatment
session of this study, the instructors confronted the experimental group participants
with more naturally occuring contexts of the targeted collocations in concordancing
extracts. As a result, these students could easily find the frequent collocates
of those words and practically
corrected
the mis-collocations. However, the participants in the control group, having less
sophisticated monolingual dictionaries, could find only a few collocates of the
targeted words, had to rely solely on their teachers explanations, and could
not achieve so well as the experimental group on the post-test. Therefore,
teachers of EFL can guide their students to own dictionaries which present more
naturally occurring data or make use of available concordancing extracts.
Most researchers who have conducted
studies on collocations have labeled grammatical collocations less problematic
than lexical collocations, since they have been mostly focused on by
instructors. However, the findings of this study have revealed that there is no
superiority between these two types in terms of difficulty. On the contrary, when
explicitly taught, although grammatical collocations are easily learned, they
are not as retainable as lexical collocations, presumably because grammatical
collocations require more recycling for long-term retention. Therefore, both
types should be treated equally in EFL settings but providing students with
more recycling exercises or tasks.
This study has revealed that
explicit instruction of vocabulary in collocations with different techniques develops
awareness in students towards collocations to the extent that they can
recognize collocations and categorize them, ask questions related to collocations,
find collocates for the headwords in the texts they encounter in their actual courses,
as well as finding collocates for the headwords in these texts to expand their vocabulary.
It has also showed that students, when taught vocabulary in collocations, retain
more words than they do when they are taught vocabulary as isolated items. Additionally,
in this study, the three techniques used in the treatment session were compared
and the translation technique was found more effective that is, the words taught
with translation technique were retained better than those taught with dictaglossing
and error correction with concordancing ex
